Tuesday, 12 January 2010

AA in English

"It's spluttering" I said to the AA breakdown call centre.

"What is that?" came the reply.

"It happened after I filled with Tesco petrol. I think it's taken in water or bad petrol. It's spluttering" I expanded.

"What is spluttering?" I was again asked.

Now I consider anything wrong with the car as a crisis situation. In a crisis situation I am just not at my best as a walking thesaurus . However, as the chap at the other end clearly wasn't English, I tried to nail down the meaning as best I could "Spluttering, it's an English word."

"That's racist. I'm reporting this call to my manager"


"That's racist. I'm reporting this call to my manager" I think was spoken several times before the line went quiet.

Clearly my arch enemy (see http://revroland.blogspot.com/2009/12/martyred-carrier-bags.html ) is trying very hard to drive the last known sane person in the country - myself that is - completely bonkers.  Try as the Fiend might, I shall remain calm.   Except in a crisis of course.

POSTSCRIPT  The AA have apologised  22/1/2010


  1. In India they all speak impeccable English -much better than immigrants in Britain.

    In fact India is more British than Britain, and Britain is more Indian than British...

  2. With all due respect reverend, should you not be grateful that at least someone at the AA answered your call?

    I've been trying for over a week to speak with customer 'service' - all I get is a message explaining customer services are not answering calls and please try later!!